Observations at fieldsite

1. What’s going on in the field site? A group of girl’s ages 5-7 years old are on break in between the swimsuit and formal wear preparing themselves for the next competition.
2. How do the members of the subculture interact with each other? The little girls are in different rooms getting ready for the next part of the pageant, mothers are either doing their daughters makeup and running through the routine with the girls.
3. Make a list of terminology used at the field site with which you might be unfamiliar. Crossover, meat market, falsies, extensions, and bear.
4. What details, behaviors, and surroundings did you have questions about? How much time the girls had to get ready, if their parents were allowed to direct them through their shows, what did the judges look at the most, was jealously a big part of the pageants, and did the girls really enjoy what they were doing.
5. Find at least one person at your field site you can speak to and ask them a question about something you observed that you didn't understand. I observed that there were books on a table showing all of the girl’s pictures and what they have won, so I asked one of the mothers and she said that I was so that the girls and the mothers could take a look at their competition.

Act V

What makes this a job fieldsite? It’s in prison where the inmates live, where they met, and where the play takes place.

What observations does the author make to give us a better understanding of the subculture? He talks to the inmates about their feelings toward the characters they play and how they relate to them, and about their crimes, and about their lives.

What interview techniques does the author use to understand the subculture? The author almost always uses the question and answer technique, as well as narrative technique

What are the norms and values of the subculture? We see a hierarchy as a value in the prison as one of the prisoners refers to himself as the blue whale and the others as guppies. Also as a norm of this subculture we see the inmates are checked every time they enter and leave practice. The education of the men is also a norm in the prison

Subculture: Child Pageants

Topic: Child pageants

Sources:
Banet-Weiser, Sarah. The most beautiful girl in the world; beauty pageants and national identity
Berkeley: University of California Press, c1999.


King O’ Riain, Rebecca Chiyoko. Pure beauty: judging race in Japanese American beauty pageants.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, c2006.


Hilbodlt-Stolley, Lise. “Pretty Babies: EBSCOhost: Academic Search Complete. Feb99. March 13, 2008
< http://wfxsearchgalileo.webfeat.org/wfsearch/search?cid=11222 >

Living Dolls. Dir. Shari Cookson. Perf. Swan Bronner and Robin Browne.
HBO, 13 May 2001.


Crawford, Mary, Gregory Kerwin, Gurung Alka. “Globalizing Beauty: Attitudes of beauty pageants among
Nepali women. Volume 18. Issue 1. (Feb 2008). P61-86, p26

Reflection: I really liked the summary of the Living Dolls documentary that was shown on HBO. It seems like it will be quite interesting, because reading an article or a book is not the same thing as actually seeing it. By watching this film I can the interactions between the girls, mothers, judges, and outsiders and even their attitudes and behavior. Also this documentary will be useful to me in my research because I can observe the work that’s goes into these pageants, the preparations the make the girls look pretty and money spent on these pageants. This source could also be useful in the sense that I could learn a lot more about this subculture than I know right now.

Lolita

Researching a topic you know nothing about can be quite interesting. I choose the word Lolita to research, because it sounded familiar like I had heard somewhere else before. The source I choose first was the Oxford dictionary, in which I looked up the word or name Lolita. What I found was Lolita was “the name of a novel (1958) and its main character by Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) about a precocious schoolgirl seduced by a middle-aged man, used to designate people and situations resembling those in the book”. (Oxford English Dictionary, 1) I also found that the novel Lolita was also a film, by looking at a movie review for the film. The review called Lolita a film worth seeing, it also stated “She still isn't the 12-year-old of the book, but Dominique Swain is an adolescent killer, and Jeremy Irons does some nice suffering.” (Kauffmann, 26) Also by looking at the Oxford dictionary it describes different ways in which the term Lolita has been used in history starting in the year 1959. (Oxford English Dictionary, 1). The website sparknotes has a lot of resourceful information on the novel Lolita, it displays the context of the novel, and it has summaries of each chapter in good detail, character analyses, review questions and further reading. ( Sparknotes) I did research on the author of Lolita and found Vladimir Nabokov was the author who wrote Lolita, he was born in Russia, The Nabokov’s family was known for their high culture and commitment to public service. In 1940 Vladimir moved to the United States where he began writing in English which he really didn’t like doing. Though his passion was not writing in English, one of Vladimir best work Lolita was written in English. (Vladimir Nabokov). The resource I used was again a type of dictionary, but in this dictionary I found a actually definition of the word Lolita it says “a precociously seductive girl” (Merriam Webster Online).

Snoop Dogg Research

The first website that came to my mind while looking for information on Snoop Dogg was MTV. Why, because I know that MTV is constantly updated on artist’s songs and videos. Next I decided to visit his official home page , because I knew I could get all the information about his life and all the albums, songs, and videos he has done and there names and years, official homepages are usually greatly detailed. I visited his Myspace page because I knew I could see what people and fans wrote to him, and I could see his latest videos, and other videos pertaining to him. I also visited the Wikipedia to see if any information was changed about him, since anyone is free post what the want on Wikipedia. Last I decided to take a look at a fans page that had been made for Snoop so I could get a taste into the fans life and what they had posted about Snoop and his career. The disadvantage of looking at MTV is that its entertainment based which means it’s likely to show and talk about his mistakes rather then his achievements. The advantage of looking at his official homepage is that it’s more likely to show his achievements in the music business. Taking a look at Myspace has a disadvantage because everything on the page will be in the artist’s benefit, and an advantage would be the fans comments and postings. Wikipedia would definitely be a disadvantage because the information stated on this website could be wrong. Last looking at a fans page is a disadvantage, because you will only get the fans view, which will contain all positive things.

Hip Hop America

The book Hip Hop America by George Nelson talks about the history of Hip Hop starting from the 70’s to present day Hip Hop culture that affects fashion, movies, sports, and advertising. I know that this book would be interesting to me because it explains the history of Hip Hop which I know so little about and would like to learn more about. It also talks about different themes that are known in the Hip Hop culture like language, drugs, incarceration, and entrepreneurship , which would interest me to learn more about these themes and there affects on the Hip Hop culture. This book also has a interview with Sean Combs in it a key player in the Hip Hop world and it would be nice to read his opinions on the present day Hip Hop Culture. George Nelson the author of this book is a considered one the most knowledgeable hip hop writers on the planet. Nelson is a good candidate for writing this book, because he is a longtime music and cultural critic , and he has been a major key role figure in the developments of Hip Hop. As said before, Nelson knows the history of hip hop like the back of his hand from beginning to present day. He also grew up in the era when it was started so he personal experiences from being there at that time in history.

Dizzee Rascal

Dylan Mills, professional known as Dizzee Rascal is an England based rapper, who incorporates different styles like garage MCing, conventional rap, grime and ragga, with extremely eclectic samples and more exotic styles to create his own blend of music. Dizzee Rascal was introduced to music production by his school teacher who took interest in him. Dizzee Rascal is also known for his fast rapping style that can be compared to the rapper Twister in America. Through Dizzee’s life there were many happy and sad moments. Dizzee Rascal grew up in the East End of London were as a young teenager he was arrested for stealing cars. In his life Dizzee won numerous awards and stayed on the top charts with his hits. In 2003 Dizzee was stabbed five times, tabloids liked the stabbing to a feud going on between Dizzee and So Solid Crew. Dizzee Rascal has made five albums so far in his and is still going with his 2007 hit song “Flex”. By just giving a brief overview into Dizzee Rascal’s life one can see many similarities between him and the Hip Hop Culture in America. First Dizzee was introduced to music by school teacher, usually there is always someone cares whether it be a teacher, parent, sibling, or someone already in the music world who gives a lending to that person to get started. Second, we see Dizzee Rascal created his own persona in the rap industry, no two rappers are alike, and Dizzee adds different unique styles to his music making it his own. Third, in a lot of his songs Dizzee raps about situations going on in his life and around him whether they be good or bad, which is quite similar to old school Hip Hop in America. Last, the incident in which Dizzee Rascal was stabbed fives is common especially in the America Hip Hop culture whether it’s for the publicity or real “beef” as they call it in the Hip Hop culture.

Peer Review

I actually really enjoyed the peer review, coming from a class last semester where we just turned papers in without any peer review or rough drafts. I like the fact that I got the chance to allow one of my audiences (students) read, edit, and review my paper. The whole process went pretty well, we all switched papers, read each others paper, and gave comments and suggestions. I received some good advice on how to make last paragraph fit better into my entire essay. I was also advised to put an example of personal experience dealing with one of the issues a talked about in my paper. I think I also made some helpful contributions to my group members’ papers. Though I thought the peer review was helpful to me and my other group members, a big issue was time. I didn’t have enough time to analyze and make comments like I wanted. Another issue that didn’t work well with the peer review was the sheets we had to fill out with each paper. I was to busy trying to finish the worksheet that I didn’t spend enough time on the paper, which I believe should have been the main focus of peer review.

PCU

For the pass week our theme has been college life, which we have observed, read, and discussed. In the last activity dealing with our theme we watched the movie PCU about the life of a group of college students. After watching the movie, I tried to compare it to my actually college experience so far and found that I had nothing in common with the college students in the movie. The movie displayed many fallacies throughout the entire film. The scene in the movie that created a huge genetic fallacy to me was in the beginning when the new guy arrived and he was talking to the leader of the Pit who said there were three things he needed to survive which were beers, not talk to any women, become friends with a guy who had a car, and have no classes before eleven. Another genetic fallacy I caught was also in the beginning when the new guy arrived at the Pit and everyone was doing their own thing (smoking, skateboarding, watching TV) basically nothing related to school. By having these scenes in the movie I feel like the argument for this movie is that college is a waste of time, students don’t learn, drinking and parties are there many focus, and protesting. I disagree with this reputation of college students in the movie, especially when every college student doesn’t participate in activities like these.

Into the Wild

“Into the Wild” a book that documents the life and death of Christopher McCandless probably puzzles the average American. Living in the world’s richest country we as people tend to get caught in worldly materials that young Christopher McCandless decided to give up for the freeness of the nature. America’s materialistic setting has caused people like McCandless to abandon reality and go on solitary journeys. By comparing and contrasting present time in America and fifteen years ago we may find it hard to find a character like McCandless .Taking a look at the world today we see the average American or American family striving for the riches of the world. By having the title as the richest country in the world people struggle to fit the stereotype image of an American family living in a six bedroom home with two luxury cars parked outside. Though some people live this way, not everyone does and there are even thousands of homeless people on the streets of America who are not living the American dream. For example in the article “Death of an Innocent” “Chris didn’t understand how people could possibly be allowed to go hungry especially in this country” said Billie McCandless. Yes, we should wonder why such things go on in a country so rich in money and opportunities. Not only has money taken over lives, but so has fame. Instead of taking time to look into the issues affecting American society today we turn the lives and stars and celebrities and deal with their problems before we even fix ours. For instance people like Paris Hilton, Brittney Spears, and Michael Vick are people who we have become obsessed with watching their every move as detective watches its target. In McCandless case it is very unlikely that a character like him would exist today in modern society where all are focus is money, fame, and materials. I do believe that a character similar to McCandless would be more common fifteen years ago when stories like this were of the norm. In the article “Death of an Innocent” there are numerous examples that back up the existence of a character like McCandless would be more common fifteen years ago. First the author Jon Krakauer shared his similar experience as a young man who experienced many things that McCandless went through like the trip to Alaska and even escaped some things that McCandless didn’t, like death. This article even compares McCandless journey to others like John Waterman a mentally unbalanced man who disappeared in the mountains of Denali, and Carl McCunn a wildlife photographer from Texas who committed suicide after being left in the in the forest. Though all these men had different stories they all had a common love for nature. Stories like this left people in the nineties to think of the stories as common, whereas people today would shocked and appalled at stories like these. Ultimately when looking into the life and death of Christopher McCandless one may get sense of relief to know that someone wasn’t confined to America’s materialistic world of riches and fame, and it’s also sad to know that character like him would not exist today in the world we live in, where standards of living life are based on paper.

United Colours of Benetton

In the 1990’s the clothing company United Colours of Benetton advertised a controversial ad called “The Family”. This ad featured a dying AIDS patient surrounded by his family. In fact this graphic picture gave people a glimpse of the AIDS a deadly disease, with no cure, that took people’s lives within years or less. Though when taking a look at this ad one may question Benetton ethical values, but by taking a deeper look one may also see Benetton’s remarkable marketing skills in play. Arguments can be made that United Colours of Benetton did not feature this picture in the ad to aware people of AIDS only, but instead for other reasons. Arguments also can made that United Colours of Benetton used their controversy as publicity. These are two strategies in which I believe the Benetton Company used to appeal to its consumers in the early 1990’s.
Observing the first strategy we see that the ad appeals to our senses and emotions. Seeing such a graphic picture really hits the average person in the heart by letting them foretaste AIDS and its destruction. By using such a picture in this nationwide ad, the Benetton Company did make more people aware of the disease that the world knew so little about. Also by featuring this picture in ads the Benetton Company contributed to an AIDS foundation. Though United Colours of Benetton did some good, the company main objectives were marketing. Since the company contributed some of it earnings to an AIDS foundation, some people would see the ad and think they’re helping people with AIDS by buying their products, which one type of consumers they appeal to. Taking a look into Psychology it is a known fact that the more a person looks at an advertisement (ad, billboard, commercial and etc…) the more likely you are to purchase the product, these people make up the second type of consumers.
Moreover the Benetton Company used another tactful strategy that attracted more consumers. The strategy they used was controversy, which may seem bad to any company but in the Benetton’s Company situation it was good. One may ask why, by creating controversy the company received unlimited publicity. By receiving free unlimited publicity in newspapers and on television United Colours of Benetton received recognition from the world. Therefore because of the controversy involving The Benetton Company, they became more appealing to consumers. Though this strategy may seem unethical it is quite common in the world, when we look at news on TV or read the newspapers we see or hear similar concepts. From time to time we also see musicians and artists who talk about touchy issues to farther their careers.
Ultimately we have examined the strategies in which United Colours of Benetton Company have used to campaign their clothing. By alluring our senses and emotions the company has got a strong hold on some of its consumers this way. By repeatedly seeing this ad consumers are more likely to purchase the product, which is a fact in the world of psychology. Also by receiving unlimited publicity from their controversial ads United Colours of Benetton pulled in consumers in an irony effect. So in the world of business the Benetton Company succeeded, because every company’s main goal is gain consumers and sell products, and that’s just what they did.